Should anyone really be surprised at the House Builders’ Federation’s (HBF) warning that the government has little chance of hitting its target of building 1.5 million new homes over the course of this Parliament? The target of 300,000 new homes a year has become something of a holy grail for previous governments, too. If Boris Johnson and, before him, Gordon Brown failed in their housebuilding ambitions, why did the present government think it would do any better?

The mistake of former housing minister Angela Rayner and others in the government was to imagine that the main problem with low rates of house-building was Tory-voting nimbys in the shires who were holding up planning permissions. Tackle them, went the thinking, and all would be well. This was one form of deregulation which Lab

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